Hope you all have a great holiday season. If not, at least the days are getting longer now ;).

The Atheist Society has a long history of running annual Winter Solstice meals, and this year was no exception. Despite us being unable to get in to Red Hot World Buffet, or be able to get karaoke going at OK Karaoke, it was never the less an enjoyable evening.

Best of all, I achieved the impossible – I think I am probably the first Yorkshireman ever to manage to stop eating when he was full and not keep going until he felt like a short walk over to the hospital on the other side of Millenium Square would be a strongly advisable course of action, in an attempt to squeeze every last penny of value out of the all you can eat buffet. I knew it was going to be a challenge, so I’m quite pleased with myself :D.

That’s right, I said it. I’m an atheist, and I used the word Christmas. I know, I know, I’m crazy, I’m on the edge, etc, etc. A lot of non-believers don’t like using the word because they think it has too many Christian connotations. But I really don’t have a problem with it.

Why? I guess for the same reason that Reclaim the Night started. I don’t think we should give up the word so easy. Because it’s nonsense that the origins of the holiday season lie in Christianity, we all know it’s nonsense and it really doesn’t bother me that people are occasionally misguided about this, but even if they were, it would only inspire me to explain to them the truth.

Of course, Christians genuinely are celebrating the birth of Jesus, but the rest of us aren’t. Any suggestion we were could equally be rebuked by the argument that actually, Christians are celebrating Paganism just as much. So I don’t even get drawn into the debate these days. For me, as a Humanist, the holiday season is another arbitrary point to celebrate life. family and friendships. But as all holidays are essentially arbitrary these days, it doesn’t make it any less special.

On Tuesday we headed down to Red Hot World Buffet for the Atheist Society’s annual Winter Solstice meal.

Or at least, that is where we thought we were heading. We had decided that we didn’t need to book because only six people had confirmed as coming on Facebook and it was a Tuesday and it was a buffet and it was huge.

However, on the night, 12 people turned up and when Norm, who had gone on ahead of us, asked how long the wait would be on an appropriated sized table – he was told, two weeks! I mean seriously, who holds their Christmas party on a Tuesday and goes to a buffet? Standards these days.

Luckily Spice Quarter were kind enough to fit us in so we enjoyed a high quality buffer after all.

Tuesday night saw the annual Atheist Society Winter Solstice meal. It was reasonably well attended being hosted by LS6 which is like a hobbit hole with little caverns that just keep burying deeper into what looks quite small from the outside but is actually massive.